The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary is a project about home, our unique environment and the migratory shorebirds that spend the greatest part of their year here, on the shores of Australia and New Zealand. Migratory shorebirds are the fastest declining group of birds in Australia, and this project is designed to make them and their habitat visible, which I hope will in turn help to save them from extinction.

To participate in the project, artists from Australia and New Zealand are invited to respond to the unique nature of their local migratory shorebird habitat. Australia and New Zealand have over 100* internationally important shorebird overwintering sites#. These sites are not interchangeable: they each possess a unique combination of physical and biological features that make it the perfect sanctuary for migratory shorebirds to return to, year after year.

Migratory shorebirds suffer from an image problem - brown birds that inhabit the intertidal zone, often mudflats - they are cryptic birds in an often overlooked landscape. What is more, much of their habitat has been reclaimed, used for marinas, docklands, ports, cities etc. For example, records tell that Melbourne was once the 'Kakadu of the south' - an area unrivalled in rich wetland habitat. I am inviting artists to seek out their local habitat and document their personal response to it, whether it is an industrial waterway awash with the wakes of passing container ships or a pristine tidal zone shared with sharks and turtles. As artists, we can make it visible, and in this way we will create an intricate and personal map of our precious shorebird habitat.

PROJECT AIMS

to raise awareness of Australia and New Zealand as the major destination for migratory shorebirds of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, as they spend the greatest single portion of their migratory cycle on our shores (Sept./Oct. – April/May)

to raise community and individual awareness of the intrinsic value and uniqueness of local shorebird habitat

to map a personal response to the richness of our shores

to link artists around Australia and New Zealand

‘Knowledge bestows ownership; uniqueness bestows value.’

THE PRINT PROJECT

Printmakers are invited to contribute one print created in response to the unique nature of their local environment. In pondering how their local habitat is precious to shorebirds, artists are also invited to reveal how it is precious to them. Migratory shorebirds provide the focus for the project, but artists can respond to any aspect that they perceive as rendering the area unique e.g. the geology, prey species, tidal patterns, flora, other local native fauna etc.

Artists can ask for a list of sites in their vicinity or, if they are already aware of their local shorebird habitat, they can add their area to the list.

I am planning to organise events in each state inviting interested artists to attend talks by shorebird experts in or near their local habitat. If artists would like an event at their site, please contact me and I will try and organise one or put you in touch with a local expert.

The prints will become part of a unique print folio that will provide an in-depth personal response to our unique coast and the sites that our migratory shorebirds depend on in order to survive. I intend to find a permanent home for the folio in a state or national collection.

To be part of the Overwintering Project printmakers are asked to

submit two copies of the print made for the project to the co-ordinator: one to exhibit and one to sell to raise funds for shorebird research. Any form of original print is accepted. Paper size: 28 x 28 cm.

submit a good-quality image of the print to the project, title and medium, a 100 words artist statement and a precise description of the location of your site

pay an administrative charge of $25***

This project is expected to continue for up to three years. It will be supported by a website that will list Overwintering Project exhibitions and display images of the art generated in response to each site. The final manifestation of the Overwintering Project will be an exhibition or exhibitions of the entire Overwintering Project print folio. ‘

Informal groups of printmakers and/or print workshops are invited to hold their own Overwintering Exhibitions if it is a theme that inspires them. The conditions are as below for organising bodies and galleries.

If an artist would like to organise a solo exhibition around the project theme, contribute more than one work, or create an artists book, please contact the project co-ordinator.

The Print Project provides both the fundraising aspect of the Overwintering Project, and the enduring core of work that can be exhibited at any time to aid shorebird or coastal conservation.

FOR ORGANISING BODIES

Councils, schools, BirdLife groups, NPWS services etc. that have an interest in raising awareness of their local shorebirds and shorebird habitat are invited to organise Overwintering Project exhibitions.

As co-ordinator I will document and publicise the project through the project website and facebook page, will help seek further publicity and, if required I will try to co-ordinate with local services to provide talks and information about the local shorebird habitat and species. While I am unable to assist with funding, the benefit of joining the project is that it will build a national picture of co-ordinated events so that people realise that migratory shorebirds depend on habitat throughout Australia and New Zealand.

In order to be part of the Overwintering Project organisers must

First discuss the scope and shape of the local exhibition with the project co-ordinator

Register the project with the project co-ordinator and supply details (dates; opening time; venue; participants) to be publicised on the project’s website

Provide participating artists with information about their local migratory shorebird habitat, which can include information on any aspects of the local environment

EITHER provide the co-ordinator with good quality photo documentation of all works in the exhibition, with details of artist, title, medium, dimensions (if each work is to be documented in the project) OR provide good quality exhibition images with image descriptions (if the exhibition as a whole is to be documented)

Provide the co-ordinator with a 150 word description of the local shorebird habitat to appear on the website and with a list of participating artists

FOR GALLERIES

Galleries are welcome and encouraged to hold iterations of ‘The Overwintering Project’. As long as two copies of any prints made for the project are forwarded to the co-ordinator (by the artist or the gallery) the gallery is under no obligation to donate any proceeds to the project.

To be part of the project the conditions are as above for Organising Bodies, except re ‘providing participating artists with information about their local migratory shorebird habitat’. If the gallery is unable to fulfil this condition, the co-ordinator will help to organise a local information session for participating artists. Additionally, galleries can choose an alternate name for the exhibition, as long as it is stated somewhere prominent, including in all publicity materials, that it is an iteration of the Overwintering Project.

***Printmakers who participate in an Overwintering Project exhibition in a gallery that charges a commission on the sale of prints are waived the administration charge for joining the project

SUGGESTED TIMELINE

Migratory shorebirds arrive back in Australia and New Zealand from their migrations in about September-October, overwinter (i.e. spend the summer) on our shores, then head off again on their breeding migration in April/May. This timeline reflects that in as much as I envisage preliminary site visits being made as the birds arrive, artists making work in response to those visits over the summer, and exhibitions being held as the birds head off, to coincide with World Migratory Bird Day. This is just a suggested timeline!!

General Project timeline 2017-2020Sept.-Oct.: talks & workshops organised for participating artists, to coincide with the return of the shorebirdsMay: Overwintering Project exhibitions occur to coincide with World Migratory Bird Day (May 10; http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org)

BACKGROUND

The Overwintering Project is designed to be organic in nature. In my experience of co-ordinating the shorebird-related project, The Flyway Print Exchange, the idea of the Flyway and the shorebirds that migrate annually along it resonated with far more artists than could practically join the original project. We overcame this limitation by holding other exhibitions where local artists could make related artwork and exhibit these alongside the Flyway Print Exchange. This led to some beautiful exhibitions, but it would have been more satisfying to incorporate those artists’ works into a larger project. The Overwintering Project is designed to be able to contain the works of as many artists as want to be a part of it.

Australia has 36 species of migratory shorebirds that breed above the Arctic Circle in Siberia and Alaska, migrating south to spend the major part of their migratory cycle (October – May) on the shores of Australia and New Zealand. The route they fly annually between their two homes is called the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, and their journeys link 23** countries from New Zealand to Russia along the coast of Asia through which they fly, stop to rest and refuel, and breed. They travel this 25,000 circuit every year of their adult lives.

Largely due to their dependence on habitat in every one of the 23 Flyway countries – most of which number among the fastest-growing economies on the planet – migratory shorebirds are the fastest declining group of birds in Australia. As their home for the majority of the year, we have a particular responsibility in Australia and New Zealand to preserve their critical overwintering habitat. Through the Overwintering Project I hope to raise awareness of migratory shorebirds – their existence and their needs – to help us do our part to preserve the lives of these extraordinary creatures.

This project is endorsed by BirdLife Australia and by the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information including a map of sites, or to enquire about joining the project, please contact Kate Gorringe-Smith, Overwintering Project Co-ordinator at: overwinteringproject@gmail.com

*the existing list of sites was identified in the paper Bamford M, Watkins D, Bancroft W, Tischler G and J Wahl. 2008. Migratory Shorebirds of the East Asian - Australasian Flyway; Population Estimates and Internationally Important Sites. Wetlands International Oceania. Canberra, Australia.#many of these sites have global significance and are also listed under the Ramsar Convention Treaty as internationally significant wetlands (www.ramsar.org ), and are Key Biodiversity Areas (A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas was launched by BirdLife International and ten other leading conservation NGOs in September 2016; http://www.birdlife.org.au/projects/KBA ).** TheEast-Asian Australasian Flywayextends from Arctic Russia and North America to New Zealand and is used by over 50 million migratory waterbirds. The countries that comprise the East-Asian Australasian Flyway are: the USA (Alaska); Russia (Siberia); Mongolia; China; North Korea; South Korea; Japan; the Philippines; Vietnam; Laos; Thailand; Cambodia; Myanmar; Bangladesh; India; Malaysia; Singapore; Brunei; Indonesia; Timor; Papua New Guinea; Australia and New Zealand.